Janet Lakhani is proud of her role as an adviser to a body set up by the former Labour prime minister on how to implement good practice in the workplace.

On her professional profile she claims her goal is “to contribute significantly to reducing the equality gaps in the UK”.

Yet the 60-year-old campaigner can now be exposed as a callous swindler who conned her own elderly mother out of almost £30,000, money that should have paid for her care.

With husband Amyn, 50, Lakhani blew the cash on a “lavish lifestyle” and even ran up a £17,000 bill on a credit card they took out in the pensioner’s name.

The pair squandered the money on designer clothes, holidays and private school fees for their children rather than make life comfortable for her mother.

They have escaped with a suspended jail term but the couple face ruin after being exposed as liars. They have been ordered to pay back the money by the end of the month.

They used this money to fund lavish lifestyles rather than investing it in the care of a relative who needed it

DC Cath Rogerson

Lakhani, the chief executive since 2002 of her own company Committed 2 Equality (c2e), was arrested last March after a “complex” year-long inquiry by police.

Financial investigators were called in after Cumbria County Council failed to receive sufficient financial returns to show where money they provided for the care of Lakhani’s mother was being spent. The 86 year old was living in Barrow-in-Furness when the council began independent payments for care in 2008.

Evidence showed the Lakhanis had created false invoices and made fraud­ulent withdrawals from her mother’s care account to the value of £29,671.83.

Officers also discovered the couple had applied for credit cards in her mother’s name and run up balances of £17,000. Lakhani is happy to cash in on her past connections, citing TV, media and government awards. The Race Equality Taskforce was set up by the Institute for Public Policy Research and launched by Mr Blair in 2003 to tackle the under-representation of ethnic minorities in the private sector.

It was made up of CEOs of leading UK organisations who had “demonstrated a commitment to equality and diversity”.

As well as claiming to be a specialist in international advertising after living and working in Europe, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Lakhani claims she is fluent in French and German and proficient in Swahili and Arabic.

Her CV lists charity work on a water resources project with the United Nations Environment Programme and the Red Crescent.

The Lakhanis, who live in a six-bedroom mansion in Matlock, Derbyshire, pleaded guilty in October to two charges of fraud.

At Preston Crown Court last week, both were handed 36-week jail sentences suspended for two years, two-year community orders and told to do 200 hours unpaid community work.

DC Cath Rogerson, who led the case, said: “This was a complex and challenging invest­igation that focused on funds that were provided for the care of an elderly and vulnerable woman. Suspicion was raised when Cumbria County Council failed to receive sufficient returns on funds that were provided for the independent care of Mrs Lakhani’s mother. Our inquiries revealed the elderly woman’s own daughter and her husband had fraudulently obtained almost £30,000 from the care account.

“They used this money to fund lavish lifestyles rather than investing it in the care of a relative who needed it. A Proceeds of Crime order was also made.”

The Lahkanis were unavailable for comment. A family member who answered the door said: “I’m sorry they’re out, they’ve gone to visit Janet’s mother in hospital.”